


Fireborne

by shadowtraveled (meteorfest)



Category: Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Slash, humanization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meteorfest/pseuds/shadowtraveled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange fire in Bunker Nine brings back an old friend, with a rather surprising change about him. Leo's in for more than one surprise when Festus returns to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireborne

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you read the pairing right. This version of Festus is mostly my doing, though it was encouraged by Kelsey. Therefore, this fic is for her. All for Kelsey. This actually got away from me and decided to become it's own full story, rather than the drabble I thought I'd be writing. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this!

Working on the _Argo II_ was not easy work, even when the whole of Cabin Nine was working on the ship. They only had until June to get the ship built and armored, stocked and armed. There was so much to do and time was passing. Gaea would not wait for them to finish. It was important that the children of Hephaestus got the ship built and ready for launch by summer. Leo was going to do everything it took to get it done, even if he had to work by himself late into the night.

He'd always been the type to do that. Give Leo Valdez a project and he'd work on it until he passed out. That was what had let him get Festus repaired in one night, where it would have taken a week to do it if he followed any schedule other than his own. ADHD be damned, Leo was going to see this through. However, building a warship from old blueprints was not the same as repairing a dragon that had gone crazy because of a rusted chip. Even with his siblings helping, it was taking a long time to get things done.

It had been two months since they'd begun construction and, so far, things were going smoothly. The skeleton of the ship was complete and they were working on the inner levels of the ship – three decks, with rooms enough for everyone that was going on the journey to the Roman camp and, then, on to Greece. Leo led his cabin mates through everything, getting help from his own friends on occasion, though Jason was often busy talking with Chiron and Piper, while she tried (and Leo appreciated the fact that she did),could not be trusted with power tools _at all_.

Sitting on scaffolding that was set up against the side of the ship, Leo was working on re-enforcing the bones of the ship, to make sure that it would hold up against any enemy fire they might sustain during the journey – or, gods forbid, when they reached Camp Jupiter. It was late, after midnight, and most of Leo's siblings had retired to their beds in Cabin Nine, while he remained in the bunker. Jason had retreated to Cabin One while Piper had wandered off to her cabin. Right now, it was just Leo, his tool-belt, and the lifeless head of the bronze dragon, Festus, in the bunker. Call him crazy if you will, but Leo liked talking to Festus, even if the dragon could no longer respond.

"You know, Piper's not bad," Leo was saying, "but she really can't handle a nail gun. I mean, look at this!" He gestured to the scattered line of nails in the wooden beam he was working on. "Bent nails, nails out of line...this one's not even all the way in!"

It didn't matter to him that Festus never responded. Leo spoke to the dragon during those lonely hours in the middle of the night because it made him feel better. It made him feel as if Festus were still with him, even though he'd been lost months ago, in the cold of December. There was no light in the dragon's mechanical eyes, the line of bronze teeth no longer whirred as they moved along in his jaw, and there certainly were no clicks and taps of Morse code in response to Leo's words, but at least Leo had the comfort of still being able to talk to the dragon.

It was still lonely, though.

Leo gave a laugh, quiet and rather bitter. He still hurt, remembering the day he lost Festus. For years after his mother had died, he'd been alone. His family hadn't wanted him, he'd never had a family in any of the foster homes the state had put him into. Before the whole ordeal at the Grand Canyon, Leo had never had any friends, not in the sense that Festus had been. Even his friendship with Jason had been a lie until their week-long quest had become the foundation for something real. With Festus, though, it had been real from the start.

There had been no lies between the boy and his dragon, no false memories, no goddesses interfering with things. Festus had been Leo's best friend since the son of Hephaestus had repaired him, given him the wings that had been made for him so long ago. The dragon had been loyal, there had been no question of Festus' intent to protect and serve the demigod and, in return, Leo had loved the dragon, as his friend, the first he'd truly had.

And then that _stupid_ King Midas with his _stupid_ security system had taken Festus away from him.

Neither Jason nor Piper had been able to comfort him when Festus had been lost, because Leo hadn't let them. He'd put up a front, the same front that had let him escape the pain of losing his mother, the sadness of not having a place to call home. Festus' last wish had been to be used as the figurehead for the _Argo II_ , to stay with Leo that way. Even after being destroyed, Festus had wanted to stay with Leo.

Leo's heart ached thinking about it. He'd lost his best friend and, yet, Festus was still there. Leo had called the dragon "the best thing he'd ever fixed" but even that had been putting it lightly; Festus had been the greatest thing to ever happen to him. Nothing could compare to the friendship he'd had with the dragon, not even the friendship he was continuing to build with Jason. As he thought about everything he'd been through in that one week, the flights with Festus, the late-night conversations he'd had with the dragon, as one-sided as they'd been, Leo could feel his heart burning with anguish, because he knew that he would never have such a true friendship like that again.

He almost didn't realize that it wasn't just his heart figuratively burning. The beam he'd stopped focusing on, the one that held Festus' head above the son of Hephaestus's own head, had caught fire. Leo gave a shout of surprise and jumped back, eyes wide. What had happened? Had he accidentally sparked a flame? Heart racing now, the demigod knew he had to do _something_ to stop the fire – all the work he and his siblings had done to build the _Argo II_ would be for nothing if he let the flame burn.

 _No, no, no!_ Leo thought to himself. Concentrating with every ounce of strength he had, the son of Hephaestus focused on the flames working to consume the beam and tried to will them out. _I can't let you burn!_

The fire didn't seem to think the same way as Leo though; it seemed determined to burn. The fire didn't respond to his will, just continued to burn. Leo was beginning to panic because _this was not supposed to happen_. He couldn't let this happen! The fate of the world depended on the seven greatest demigods being gathered and those seven demigods depended on the _Argo II_ to get them to Greece, to the ancient home of the gods. If the ship burned, they failed.

"No!" Leo shouted. He couldn't fail! Reaching out, he tried to pull the flames to him, hoping to stop them, but he had to leap back again when Festus' head crashed down in front of him. Leo lost his concentration and, with it, the flames jumped from the beam to the dragon head – he could barely believe the sight because fire didn't simply _jump_ from a beam like that and, what's more, it didn't even leave a mark on the wood. Leo didn't give himself the chance to worry about that, though, because the flames were now surrounding the bronze dragon head and were _growing_. "Festus!"

He couldn't lose the dragon again! Even if Festus wasn't alive, in the sense that Leo himself was, deactivated and used only as a figurehead on a ship, the dragon was still Leo's best comfort in the middle of the night, his one-sided conversations with the head were the only thing that kept him going when he was exhausted. Leo leapt over the side of the scaffolding, sliding down the ladder to get to the dragon as quickly as he could.

By this point, the flames were twice as tall as he was and were burning white-hot. Leo didn't think he could stop them at all anymore, but he still tried, because he refused to lose Festus again. He put all his concentration on the fire, focusing only on getting those flames to disappear.

"Festus!" he cried out. "Hang on, buddy!"

He didn't know what happened next. It took all of his concentration to get even a bit of the fire to die out. Whatever had sparked the fire, it hadn't been his own doing; he would have been able to stop it easily if he was his own fire. This fire, though, refused to listen to him, something he'd never run into before. Already tired from staying up late, the exertion of focusing his powers on the fire, the last thing Leo could think of before exhaustion overcame him was that he swore he heard a series of taps from the center of the flames.

* * * * *

_Tap. Tapatap. Tap._

Leo gave a groan, head tilting from side to side as the tapping noise broke through the unconsciousness that had taken him. His eyes refused to open for several moments, but as the tapping continued, the demigod forced himself to wake up more. He was suddenly aware of the smell of hot metal, something that had his eyes shooting open. Oh, gods, if the bunker was on fire, he was never going to hear the end of it from his siblings, the rest of the camp or the gods; he may be fireproof, but the bunker was not.

Bolting upright, Leo frantically looked around, searching for the fire he was so sure was still burning. The bunker was completely dark, the lights that had been flooding the area while he worked having gone out while he was unconscious. There was no fire, just the smell of hot metal, as if someone had been welding while he was out.

Or as if the bronze dragon head had been melted down by mysterious, super hot flames.

"Festus?" Leo called out, voice cracking from disuse. The tapping from before sounded up again, close by, and Leo brought his hand up, summoning a flame to light the room as he looked around. He turned to his right, where the sound was coming from and gave a yelp, the flame in his hand going out a moment later.

Okay. Okay, what? Leo took a deep breath to calm himself and summoned another flame. This time, he braced himself and, when he caught sight of the other person sitting at his side, the son of Hephaestus took a moment to actually look at him. The other looked to be a teenager, a little older than Leo; seventeen, maybe eighteen, if Leo had to make a judgment. Pale, with red hair and the strangest gold eyes that Leo had ever seen, the other teen was very definitely someone that Leo had never met before.

"Who are you?" Leo asked. "How did you get in here?"

The red-head blinked at him in confusion, eyebrows furrowed and a small frown over his lips. He didn't answer, though, simply staring at the young demigod with those odd gold eyes. Leo gave a slight frown of his own. Did the other boy not speak English? He was about to ask again, when he heard the tapping again and, in the light of the flame in his hand, saw the red-head's fingers tapping against the floor, a distinct pattern of short and long taps.

Morse code. Leo didn't even have to listen to the full tapped out message to know exactly who this person was.

"Festus?" At the other's nod, Leo gaped at the red-haired teen. "That's impossible! You're...you're - !" He was going to say 'dead', but he doubted that would go over well, as would any point about the former dragon being anything but human, as that was no longer the case. " _How_?"

Festus gave a shrug. It was clear that he could understand Leo's questions, but he couldn't answer in any way, except for Morse code. He tapped his fingers against the ground again, letting Leo listen to the series of taps and strikes against the ground as he passed his message the only way he knew how. / _Because of you./_

"Because of me?" Leo repeated, incredulously.

/ _You wanted me here./_ Festus gave a small smile, one sharp canine showing through his lips. _/I couldn't disappoint you./_

Leo had no idea what to do or say. He'd been thinking of Festus, of the _dragon_ , and now he was face-to-face with a human boy, who claimed to be his dragon, who'd come back because he couldn't disappoint Leo. "But your final wish - "

Festus pointed upwards and Leo brought his hand up to light the way as he followed the former dragon's finger. Up on the beam that he had been working on before the fire had burst out, Festus the dragon's head was right where it had been before. Leo arched a brow.

"Huh." Well, this was just getting stranger and stranger. There was no evidence of the fire, the bronze dragon head was right where it belonged and the human claiming to be Festus was sitting right there next to Leo. "I passed out while working and this is all just a dream, isn't it?"

Festus gave a snort of laughter. It was the first sound that Leo heard from the red-head and one that brought a grin to the demigod's lips. Festus gave a shake of his head, indicating that no, this wasn't a dream. It was real.

"Stranger things have happened," Leo mused aloud, flopping back down to the floor, dropping the flame from his hand and tucking his arms under his head. "I mean, my dad's a Greek god and look how messed up _those_ stories are. A human that used to be a bronze dragon can't be much weirder than Greek myth, right?"

Festus laughed again and Leo knew that it was definitely his Festus, the dragon that he had befriended months ago, when he'd been new to Camp Half-Blood. Only the dragon had ever made Leo feel so comfortable with just a laugh; even when Festus' laugh had only been a whirr of his teeth before.

"I think I'm going to have a lot of fun introducing you to the others." Leo honestly didn't know how he was going to explain this. If this really wasn't a dream, then he would have to find a way to tell his siblings and his friends that the mysterious new guy was actually a dragon before. "First things first, though, I need sleep."

_/Sleep is good./_

* * * * *

Sleep was definitely good. It was too bad, though, that the sleep Leo had fallen into was interrupted when one of his siblings nudged him awake. Just as before, when Festus had woken him, Leo was slow to pull himself out of sleep. He opened his eyes, blinking for a long moment before he realized that it wasn't just his siblings there with him, Jason and Piper were there, and they were all looking down at him in confusion. Leo took another long moment to realize why.

Curled up next to him, arm slung over his waist and face buried against his shoulder, was Festus. The red-head was fast asleep, snoring lightly, completely oblivious to the group currently standing by, waiting for an explanation from the son of Hephaestus. Leo gave a grin, laughing a bit awkwardly.

"Well, this isn't how I was hoping to introduce you," he told the others. "But, everyone, meet Festus, the not-dragon."

The gapes on his siblings' faces were nothing compared to the stunned looks on Jason and Piper's faces. Leo couldn't help laughing. His laughter stirred Festus from his sleep and the former dragon gave a wide yawn, shifting and stretching, reminding Leo so much of how Festus had stretched so lazily and catlike when he'd been a dragon. While the red-head blinked tiredly around at the group gathered, Leo explained what he knew, about the fire, about waking up and finding Festus next to him.

"I think we need to tell Chiron about this," Jake Mason spoke up. The older son of Hephaestus was finally out of the full-body cast that he'd been in when Leo had first met him and he'd been helping out where he could on the _Argo II_. He'd never seen anything like this, had never heard of it happening before, but his suggestion had a bit of merit. "Maybe he'll know what to do now."

"I already know what to do now," Leo pointed out. He sat up, reached out and ruffled Festus' hair. "We need to go get some breakfast, find my buddy here some spare clothes and get back to work."

"Leo, I agree with Jake," Piper interjected. "This is unusual, even for us. Dragon automatons don't just change into humans."

"Festus did."

"Well, yeah, but - "

"But nothing," Leo told her. He liked Piper, but this was Festus they were talking about. The dragon-turned-human was looking around, standing up and testing out his legs, as if he wasn't yet used to his human body. "Unusual or not, he's definitely Festus. And he's my friend. I'm going to treat him like I treat all my friends." He stood up and caught Festus by the arm. "Come on, buddy. We're going to get some food."

* * * * *

The group did wind up telling Chiron about Festus. The immortal centaur was just as surprised as the others were, but he cautiously accepted the fact that Festus was there, human, and staying. He put Leo in charge of taking care of the teenager that had once been the bronze dragon of Hephaestus. Festus was given a place in Cabin Nine, since they couldn't just leave him in the bunker. He was relatively easily accepted at Camp Half-Blood amongst the demigods and, often, became a source of amusement at dinner, particularly when he took a bowl of ice cream for dessert and covered it in Tabasco sauce, rather than chocolate sauce.

Under Leo's tutelage, Festus slowly learned to speak, but the two of them continued to have secret conversations in Morse code. When they weren't working on the _Argo II_ , they trained together with the other campers, with Festus picking up swordsmanship fairly quickly. Leo would hang out with Festus while Jason and Piper were busy elsewhere and no one could deny that the cheerful son of Hephaestus was even happier with Festus around.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Lacey asked her sister one day when Piper came into the cabin to get ready for dinner.

"What?"

"Leo and Festus," the younger Aphrodite girl said, as if just that was enough to explain everything. "Mitchell and I have been trying to see how far things are going to go."

Piper arched a brow at her sister. "What do you mean?"

"Some child of Aphrodite _you_ are," Drew snorted from her bed. She still held a grudge against Piper for taking her control of the cabin away and typically avoided the other girl as much as possible, choosing to give Piper the cold shoulder whenever they were in the same room. "Perhaps if you weren't so _blinded_ by your pretty Roman boy, you'd see it."

Piper had no idea what Drew was talking about, but the dig at Jason sparked her temper and she whirled on the other girl. "See _what_?"

"Festus is in love with Leo, _duh_." Drew flipped the page of her magazine, dark eyes scanning the page for her horoscope. At Piper's silence, the Asian demigod heaved a dramatic sigh and lifted her head to look at her half-sister, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "It _is_ fairly obvious, sweetie. The dork doesn't realize it, of course, but any one of us can tell love when we see it. At least, _most_ of us can."

"It's very sweet," Lacey piped up. She gleefully clapped her hands together. "It's almost like Pygmalion and Galatea. Mom brought them together, even though Galatea was just a statue. She gave Galatea life. Maybe Mom did the same for Festus!"

Piper had never heard the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea before. Once Lacey explained it in detail, telling her sister everything that she knew – which was quite a bit, considering it was one of the myths where their mother was involved – Piper had to admit that it seemed quite possible. What had still had her surprised, though, was the fact that Festus was in love with Leo. Drew had said that Leo didn't realize it and Piper felt, as Leo's friend, that maybe she should help.

* * * * *

June was coming up quick and the _Argo II_ was still not done. Leo had recruited more people into helping build the ship, getting assistance from everyone in the Athena cabin and most of the Hermes cabin. Groups came in shifts, taking time out of their schedules to come help build for an hour or two before going on about the usual camp activities. Leo gave directions, assigned tasks to everyone who helped and supervised the completion of the ship. By this point, the inner rooms of the ship were complete, the engine room was built and, with a little over a month before they were ready to launch, only the hull, final armoring, painting and the engine installation were left to do.

Leo was exhausted. He'd been working all day, getting up earlier than usual to get over to the bunker before dawn to get a head start on the day's schedule. He flopped down on the flat of the scaffolding now, staring up at the ceiling of the bunker as he heaved a sigh.

_/You're working too hard./_

Leo rolled over and stuck his head off the side of the scaffolding as he looked down at Festus. The former dragon smiled up at him, knuckles still resting against the panels of steel that were being welded to the ship. "Are you coming down for dinner?"

"I can just make something from my tool-belt," the son of Hephaestus answered. He brought his arms up under his chin, grinning down at the other teen – they'd decided that, in this form, Festus was seventeen, to Leo's sixteen. "You know I make awesome tacos."

"Especially when you add extra hot sauce," Festus agreed. It didn't matter whether he was a bronze dragon or a human; the red-head liked spicy food. His favorite food was no longer oil and Tabasco sauce, of course, but he'd eat just about anything with hot sauce. He pushed himself from the ship and moved over to the ladder, climbing up so he was level with Leo. "You're working too hard, Leo."

"I'm fine," Leo insisted.

"You're tired," Festus pointed out. "You need a break. Even the head of the Hephaestus cabin needs to take a break every once in a while."

"I can work a little longer. Remember, I stayed up all night to repair you after I came to camp."

"I was never a ship built from scratch." Festus leaned over his friend, frowning at the son of Hephaestus. "When you repaired me, I was just a malfunctioning dragon." The red-head tapped his fingers against the steel bars of the ladder he stood on. _/I'm worried about you./_

Leo gave a laugh. "You shouldn't be. I'm fine. I'm just doing my part to make sure we beat Gaea. Lighten up, Festus."

That didn't make the former dragon stop frowning. He knew how important it was for them to get the ship finished, so they could go out to find the rest of the prophecized seven demigods, but Leo was important, too; to the Great Prophecy and to Festus. _/You're my friend. I'm supposed to worry about you. I care about you./_

"I know. I appreciate it, Festus."

 _/I_ _ **really**_ _care about you, Leo./_ Festus' lips tugged to the side in what looked like undeniable guilt and uneasiness, pale cheeks flushed with heat.

Seeing that, Leo sat upright. Confused brown eyes met molten gold ones, Leo's wide and Festus' quickly looking away. "Festus."

"You're my best friend," the former dragon admitted. "You fixed me, gave me a purpose, made my existence worthwhile. You weren't ever afraid of me. You cared about me, cried over me when I crashed. Because of you, I was given this life, this chance to continue being your friend."

"Festus, you - "

_/I love you./_

To say that Leo was taken aback would have been an understatement. The son of Hephaestus was downright shocked. No one had ever told him that they loved him, not in the way that Festus was telling him now. Leo was always the one confessing his love, frivolously, to pretty girls with whom he knew he never stood a chance. Having never experienced love given to him, the demigod had no idea what to do now. Making it even more confusing for him, the one confessing their love to him was another guy, a guy that had once been a dragon automaton, that had once died, that Leo had once cried for.

"I..."

Festus cut Leo off suddenly, leaning in and pressing his lips against the demigod's in a slow, gentle kiss. For a moment, all thoughts ceased, Leo stilling, eyes wide and breath hitched. The kiss was a bit awkward, basic, neither of them experienced kissers. It didn't last long, but it got Festus' message through; he loved Leo and he wasn't joking around about it.

And that meant more to Leo than anything else. For years, ever since his mother had died and his relatives had shoved him into foster care, all he'd wanted was for someone to care about him, someone to love him. He'd confess crushes on the pretty girls, the unreachable girls, the girls that would barely give him the time of day, hoping that maybe he'd get lucky this time. What Festus was offering him, through the kiss, was the love that Leo had been looking for all these years: steadfast and honest.

It made Leo feel warm, warmer than any flame he could ever produce, warmer than the forges of Cabin Nine; it was, if he was going to be cliché, the warmth of the love he'd been chasing for he didn't know how long. He hadn't recognized it before, but Festus had always been important to him, the greatest thing that had ever happened to him and now he knew why. As Festus pulled away, a small smile crossed the demigod's lips.

"Okay. Now I get it," he told Festus. He leaned in and returned the kiss with one of his own. His fingers touched the red-head's arm and began a light tap. _/I love you, too./_

* * * * *

When Jason and Piper came down to the bunker after dinner, worried because they hadn't seen either Leo or Festus during the meal or the campfire after, they found the son of Hephaestus and his dragon curled up on the scaffolding, both of them asleep. Leo must have fallen asleep after working so hard all day and Festus was there to protect him in his sleep, as he'd always been. Piper noticed the gentle smile on Festus' lips, the content look on Leo's face, and the way the son of Hephaestus' fingers were tangled with his friend's over his hip.

Leo hadn't needed her help after all.


End file.
